§11Quid si praeter pudorem, quem potiorem putant, etiam incommoda corporis reformident, quod inlotos, quod sordulentos, quod extra laetitiam oportet deversari in asperitudine sacci et horrore cineris et oris de ieiunio vanitate? Num ergo in coccino et Tyrio pro delictis supplicare nos condecet? Cedo acum crinibus distinguendis et pulverem dentibus elimandis et bisulcum aliquid ferri vel aeris unguibus repastinandis, si quid ficti nitoris, si quid coacti ruboris in labia aut genas urgeat.
What if, besides the shame which they think more important, they also dread the discomforts of the body, because they must dwell unwashed, dirty, outside of joy, in the roughness of sackcloth, the horror of ashes, and the emptiness of the face from fasting? Is it fitting, then, for us to supplicate for our sins in scarlet and Tyrian purple? Bring here the pin for parting the hair, the powder for polishing the teeth, and some two-pronged tool of iron or bronze for grooming the nails, if any false splendor or forced redness presses upon your lips or cheeks.
Praeterea exquirito balneas laetiores hortulani maritimive secessus, adiicito ad sumptum, conquirito altilium enormem saginam, defaecato senectutem vini, cumque quis interrogarit, cuinam ea largiaris, Deliqui, dicito, in deum, et periclitor in aeternum perire; itaque nunc pendeo et maceror et excrucior, ut deum reconciliem mihi, quem delinquendo laesi. Sed enim illos, qui ambitu obeunt capessendi magistratus, neque pudet neque piget incommodis animae et corporis, nec incommodis tantum, verum et contumeliis omnibus eniti in causa votorum suorum.
Furthermore, seek out more delightful baths, recesses in gardens or by the sea, increase your expenses, search for the enormous fattening of fowls, clear the old age of wine; and when someone asks for whom you are lavishing these things, say, 'I have sinned against God, and am in danger of perishing eternally; therefore now I am suspended, wasted, and tormented, so that I may reconcile to myself God, whom by sinning I have offended.' But indeed, those who go about in ambition to attain public offices are neither ashamed nor reluctant to strive, for the sake of their desires, with discomforts of soul and body—and not only discomforts, but even all kinds of insults.
Quas non ignobilitates vestium affectant? quae non atria nocturnis et crudis salutationibus occupant? ad omnem occursum maioris cuiusque personae decrescentes, nullis conviviis celebres, nullis comessationibus congreges, sed exules a libertatis et laetitiae felicitate, idque totum propter unius anni volaticum gaudium.
What ignoble clothes do they not affect? What halls do they not occupy with nightly and early-morning salutations? Shrinking at every meeting with any greater personage, celebrated at no banquets, associated in no revelries, but exiles from the happiness of liberty and joy, and all this for the fleeting joy of a single year.
Nos, quod securium virgarumve petitio sustinet, in periculo aeternitatis tolerare dubitamus? et castigationem victus atque cultus offenso domino praestare cessabimus, quae gentiles nemine omnino laeso sibi irrogant? Hi sunt de quibus scriptura commemorat: Vae illis qui delicta sua velut procero fune nectunt. §12Si de exomologesi retractas, gehennam in corde considera, quam tibi exomologesis extinguet, et poenae prius magnitudinem imaginare, ut de remedii adoptione non dubites.
Shall we hesitate to endure, in the danger of eternity, what the pursuit of axes and rods sustains? And shall we cease to offer to our offended Lord the chastisement of food and style of life, which the gentiles impose upon themselves though no one at all is harmed? These are they of whom the Scripture makes mention: 'Woe to those who bind their sins as with a long rope.' If you shrink from exomologesis, consider Gehenna in your heart, which exomologesis will extinguish for you, and first imagine the magnitude of the punishment, so that you may not hesitate about the adoption of the remedy.
Quid illum thesaurum ignis aeterni aestimamus, cum fumariola quaedam eius tales flammarum ictus suscitent, ut proximae urbes aut iam nullae extent aut idem sibi de die sperent? Dissiliunt superbissimi montes ignis intrinsecus fetu, et quod nobis iudicii perpetuitatem probat, cum dissiliant, cum devorentur, nunquam tamen finiuntur.
How do we estimate that treasure of eternal fire, when some of its vents raise up such strokes of flames that the neighboring cities either no longer exist or expect the same for themselves day by day? The proudest mountains burst apart with the birth of fire within, and what proves to us the perpetuity of judgment is that, though they burst apart and are devoured, they are never finished.
Quis haec supplicia interim montium non iudicii minantis exemplaria deputabit? quis scintillas tales non magni alicuius et inaestimabilis foci missilia quaedam et exercitoria iacula consentiet? Igitur cum scias adversus gehennam post prima illa intinctionis dominicae munimenta esse adhuc in exomologesi secunda subsidia, cur salutem tuam deseris? cur cessas aggredi quod scias mederi tibi? Mutae quidem animae et irrationales medicinas sibi divinitus attributas in tempore agnoscunt.
Who will not regard these present punishments of the mountains as examples of the threatening judgment? Who will not agree that such sparks are some missiles and practice javelins of a certain great and inestimable hearth? Therefore, when you know that against Gehenna, after those first protections of the Lord's baptism, there is still a second aid in exomologesis, why do you desert your salvation? Why do you delay to approach what you know heals you? Even dumb and irrational animals recognize in time the remedies divinely attributed to them.
Cervus sagitta transfixus, ut ferrum et irrevocabiles moras eius de vulnere expellat, scit sibi dictamno medendum.
The stag transfixed by an arrow, so that it may expel from the wound the iron and its irrevocable delays, knows that it must be healed by dictamnus.
Hirundo, si excaecaverit pullos, novit illos oculare rursus de sua chelidonia.
The swallow, if it has blinded its chicks, knows how to make them see again by its own celandine.
Peccator restituendo sibi institutam a domino exomologesin sciens praeteribit illam, quae Babylonium regem in regna restituit? Diu enim paenitentiam domino immolarat, septenni squalore exomologesin operatus, unguium aquilinum in modum efferatione et capilli incuria horrorem leoninum praeferente.
Shall a sinner, knowing this, bypass that exomologesis established by the Lord for restoring himself, which restored the Babylonian king to his kingdoms? For he had long offered repentance to the Lord, performing exomologesis in a seven years' squalor, with the wildness of his nails in the manner of eagles and his neglected hair presenting a lion-like horror.
Proh malae tractationis! Quem homines perhorrebant, deus recipiebat.
O, the harsh treatment! Whom men dreaded, God received.
Contra autem Aegyptius imperator, qui populum dei aliquando afflictum, diu domino suo denegatum, persecutus in proelium irruit, post tot documenta plagarum discidio maris, quod soli populo pervium licebat, revolutis fluctibus periit.
On the contrary, however, the Egyptian ruler, who, having once afflicted the people of God and long denied them to their Lord, rushed into battle in pursuit, perished by the rolling back of the waves after so many proofs of plagues, in the dividing of the sea which was allowed to be passable only for the people.
Paenitentiam enim et ministerium eius exomologesin abiecerat.
For he had rejected repentance and its ministry, exomologesis.
Quid ego ultra de istis duabus humanae salutis quasi plancis, stili potius negotium quam officium conscientiae meae curans? Peccator enim omnium notarum cum sim, nec ulli rei nisi paenitentiae natus, non facile possum super illa tacere, quam ipse quoque et stirpis humanae et offensae in dominum princeps Adam, exomologesi restitutus in paradisum suum, non tacet.
Why should I say more about these two as it were planks of human salvation, caring more for the business of the pen than for the duty of my own conscience? For since I am a sinner of every kind, and born for nothing else than repentance, I cannot easily keep silence about that which Adam himself, the very founder of both the human race and of the offense against the Lord, restored to his paradise by exomologesis, does not keep silent.